[The scholar Shaykh Muhammad Hamid al-Fiqi (d. 1378), may God have mercy on him, published this article in Majallat al-Hady al-Nabawi under the title “Fasting”. Its complete text follows.]
God says: {Believers, fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may become God-fearing (183), for a limited number of days. Whoever is ill or travelling should fast an equal number of other days. Those able to bear it owe a ransom of feeding a poor person. Whoever voluntarily does good, it is better for him; fasting is better for you, if only you knew (184). The month of Ramadan in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people and clear proofs of guidance and discernment} [al-Baqarah: 183-185].
God revealed laws to His chosen prophets throughout the ages, and sent rulings and acts of worship within those divine laws, only to reform the human being, purify his soul, and cleanse it of the whisperings and temptations with which Satan tries to muddy it, and the wickedness and disobedience he beautifies for it. The more it indulges in and loves these, the further it sinks into the depths of animal baseness and stains itself in the filthy, impure mire of devilishness.
The more it cleanses itself of them, roots hatred of them within itself, infuses every particle with love of God and obedience to Him, stands before Him in servitude, sincerely submits in humility, and truly reveres His law, the higher it rises through the ascents of perfection and the degrees of pleasant life and abundant living in this world, to attain the righteous people’s station on Resurrection Day.
Human perfection consists only in intelligent spirituality prevailing over ignorant animality; wise inward meaning subduing foolish, reckless materiality; and a sound heart and tranquil soul governing unruly desires and the commanding soul.
These are human perfections. None arises except from the planting of prophethood. They grow, spread their shade, and bear abundant fruit only when watered by divine knowledge descending pure from heaven onto the soil of hearts. These stir, swell, and produce every good and blessed fruit through which humanity finds happiness and success in this world and the Hereafter: in the individual, family, group, and nation. Across centuries and generations their light continues shining for people to draw from, their fragrance continues wafting for every enjoyer, and their voice sings in the ear of every sincere lover. Such a lover knows that the heart’s lofty place befits only love of God and of what He loves in speech, action, guidance, demeanour, character, qualities, outward and inward life. {Those follow guidance from their Lord, and those are the successful} [al-Baqarah: 5].
God, the Most Merciful, made these acts of worship cords connecting His guided servants’ hearts to His holy presence and drawing them into the gardens of nearness to Him. There they enjoy the tables He spreads of His immense favour and the vast gifts He bestows upon the carpet of His mercy. Beside these, the world and many like it are worth less to them than a nail clipping. {No soul knows what delight of the eyes has been hidden for them as reward for what they used to do} [al-Sajdah: 17]. “I have prepared for My God-fearing servants what no eye has seen, no ear heard, and no human heart imagined.”
Those who understand these acts of worship, divine gifts, merciful connections, and holy breezes, as burdens, compulsory tasks, and disciplinary hardships are utterly deprived of tasting their sweet drink and reaching their clear spring. They are far from comprehending their elevated spirit. A veil covers their insight, preventing them from witnessing these breezes illuminate souls and raise them to the highest stations.
Acts of worship are honour, not burdens; bliss and delights, not hardships. But most people do not understand.
Why was prayer gifted to the beloved Prophet on the night he ascended above the heavens, at a distance of two bow-lengths or nearer? Because that night God blessed him with the pleasure of nearness and connected him, in that hour of proximity, through the beloved’s conversation with his Beloved. The Messenger’s heart tasted supreme spiritual delight, and his noble soul shone with the light of the choicest of the choice, the best of the best, and the elevation of {Glory be to Him who took His servant by night} [al-Isra: 1].
Distance after the bliss of nearness was difficult for the beloved Prophet. God was too merciful to withhold that blessing after he had known and enjoyed its spirit. He therefore granted him prayer as the connection between the beloved and his Beloved whenever he longed for the pleasure of nearness. Hence he said: “The delight of my eyes has been placed in prayer,” and: “Bilal, give us rest through prayer.” Reporting from God, he said: “I have divided prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves, and My servant shall have what he asks. The servant says: Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds. God says: My servant has praised Me. The servant says: The Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful. God says: My servant has extolled Me. The servant says: Master of the Day of Judgement. God says: My servant has glorified Me. The servant says: You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help. God says: This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he asks. The servant says: Guide us to the straight path, the path of those You have favoured, not those under wrath or astray. God says: This is for My servant, and My servant shall have what he asks.”
The servant turns to his Lord, and God graciously turns to His servant. The servant seeks to open his Lord’s door, and God kindly opens the door of access. The servant speaks the truest words and the remembrance most beloved to his Lord, and God listens and answers him, word for word and supplication with response.
Understand the Prophet’s words: “When a servant stands in prayer, he is conversing privately with his Lord, so let each of you consider with whom he converses.” Private conversation is speech apprehended only by the two conversing parties.
God is greatest! All this is called a burden, described as disciplinary hardships! Glory be to God; there is no power or strength except through Him.
By your Lord, this is the nature of all acts of worship, fasting and others alike.
Listen to the opening of God’s address on fasting, inviting His beloved ones through this gate of generosity and mercy. He calls them by the dearest titles, finest names, and sweetest expressions to their hearts: {O you who believe}. Alongside its sweetness and beauty, it is an address of honour and distinction, like His address to His beloved: {O Messenger}, {O Prophet}. He then says: {So that you may become God-fearing}. Combine this with the Prophet’s saying, “Fasting is a shield.” A shield protects the believer’s faith from everything he fears. Nothing is dearer or more precious to a believer than faith. He fears for it more than for his sight, hearing, or bodily health. How can he protect his faith from what he dislikes, shield it, and preserve it from what he fears? He finds protection only through beneficial knowledge, and beneficial knowledge only through the Qur’an, which is spirit, light, guidance, discernment, and wise remembrance. He clothes himself in the armour of the Qur’an, its guidance, manners, admonitions, and laws, shielding his faith from everything that clouds, diminishes, or destroys it: foul speech, foolish minds, ignorance, wickedness, disobedience, and everything human and jinn devils whisper or beautify, privately and publicly, inwardly and outwardly, in hearts and actions.
Fasting is a shield because it brings a person into the presence of nearness, awareness of God, and His special companionship from dawn until sunset. Through long daytime hours he struggles against every source of evil: the soul, its companion, Satan, and surrounding temptations. Whenever any calls him, he cries: I am with my Lord, my Master, my King; I am in the gardens of nearness and at the tables of favour. Leave me! Do not deprive me of my Lord, sever me from Him, or come between me and the Most Merciful, who nourishes my spirit and heart with His mercy and showers my soul with His favour and kindness. This is the secret of the Prophet’s words: “I spend the night with my Lord, who feeds me and gives me drink.”
Fasting person, if you attain the delight of this divine nearness and are blessed by a breeze of ‘with my Lord’, your soul becomes pure, your heart’s light expands, wisdom predominates in your speech and actions, and you are freed from foolishness, recklessness, ignorance, and bad character.
When the sun sets, you take enough food to sustain your frame, preserving the spirit’s vessel and the heart’s enclosure. You do not gorge on food and drink like an animal until swollen and unable to breathe.
When night comes and heedless eyes sleep, you rise to converse with your Lord through His glorious words. Your daytime fasting greatly aids your clear heart and pure soul in enjoying this conversation and recitation of the wise remembrance. You experience a pleasure beneath which, by God, all worldly pleasures fall. You then witness the secret of God’s assigning fasting to Ramadan, when the Qur’an was revealed as guidance and clear proofs of guidance and discernment. Through your soul’s clarity, heart’s purity, and spirit’s radiance, doors of understanding the Qur’an open and you gather its near-hanging fruits in wondrous ways. This, God knows best, is among the secrets of “Gabriel used to study the Qur’an with me during Ramadan.”
By God, the Qur’an’s fruits and beautiful blessings are attained only by those whose clear hearts and pure souls overcome the darkness of their animality and the desires of their bellies and private parts. What connection does the dark, lustful animal have with the Qur’an, its guidance, light, discernment, and mercies? Such people are kept far from them. Their hearts are covered against its call, their ears are heavy, and it is blindness to them. We seek God’s refuge and ask Him for well-being.
Fasting person, will you notice the secret of the unique jewel among the fasting verses: {When My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I answer the caller’s supplication when he calls Me. Let them respond to Me and believe in Me, so they may be rightly guided} [al-Baqarah: 186]?
Reflect carefully, then reread the verses from their beginning. Pause and ponder this verse at length. Fasting’s secret and wisdom will open to you: true nearness to God, who tells you not to find the matter difficult. It is easy if you are rightly guided. Pay no heed to obstacles placed in your path; surmount them and hasten to your Lord, and you will find Him near.
Advance to your Lord borne upon {so that you may become God-fearing} and illuminated by {the month of Ramadan in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people and clear proofs of guidance and discernment}.
Trample underfoot the superstitions and animal trivialities with which veiled people have long filled your head and blackened their pages: that fasting’s wisdom is to torment the soul with hunger and thirst so it feels the poor person’s need. Fie upon this claim! By God, a soul knowing only this fasting feels only like an animal tied to a stake and denied grazing. Once released, it grazes and grazes and grazes until its belly fills, then collapses into a stupor of heaviness and gluttony, neither aware nor understanding, feeling neither itself nor poor or needy people. Fasting increases it only in savage animality and darkness upon darkness. There is no power or strength except through God.
Poor people indeed! They have understood nothing of religion or obedience, even claiming prayer and Ramadan night prayer are merely physical exercises to digest the food and drink filling their bellies. Prayer becomes pecking, haste, and frivolity, a game with God’s religion. We belong to God and to Him we return. O God, guide my people, for they do not know.
When these absurdities and ignorances took possession of their souls, adding darkness upon darkness, they spoke about religion without knowledge or guidance. They claimed fasting benefits someone who abandons prayer. Their frivolity and ignorance made them imagine: this is one obligation and that another; this one burden and that another. Such is their share of religion when they take it from other than its source and draw it from the dregs of opinions and the washings of thoughts.
Had they drawn religion from its pure spring, the Qur’an and the sound, good, blessed Sunnah, they would find that all these acts of worship form a single necklace encompassing the servant’s heart to connect it with his Lord. Each is most firmly bound and completely connected to the others. They all return to prayer, concerning which the Messenger says: “Prayer is the head of Islam,” “the pillar of Islam,” and “A servant’s share of Islam corresponds to his share of prayer. Whoever has no share in prayer has no share in Islam.”
Prayer is the firmest connection and strongest bond with God. If the necklace breaks there, it is utterly impossible to restore its order from any other point, however those who understand only outward words and verbal husks may try and obscure matters.
Believers, make your hearts’ bond with God truly firm, and {guard the prayers, especially the middle prayer, and stand devoutly before God} [al-Baqarah: 238].
Open wide the doors of nearness to God through fasting in this month. Renew your hearts and faith by reciting the Qur’an, adopting its character, and observing the Messenger’s manners, which were nothing but the Qur’an. Do not squander these happy opportunities. Whoever loses them is deprived in this world and the Hereafter. We ask God for guidance and success for us and you.
Shaykh Muhammad Hamid al-Fiqi (d. 1378), may God have mercy on him.
Majallat al-Hady al-Nabawi, issued by Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah al-Muhammadiyyah, year 1, issue 6, pp. 24-30, published Ramadan 1356, corresponding to November 1937. Publisher: Maktabat Manar al-Tawhid li-l-Nashr, Medina; Maktabat Ibn Taymiyyah, Cairo, 1/24-30.